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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The French government has learned it is saving money switching from Windows to Ubuntu. Now France wants to influence the rest of Europe to join them. From the New York Times:

If the French National Assembly gets its way, the open-source Linux operating system will take over the governments of Europe, seizing on a weak economy to displace Windows.

About 18 months ago, the Assembly shifted from running Windows on the 1,100 computers of its members and their assistants to running a version of Linux called Ubuntu. (I profiled the rise of Ubuntu in a recent article.) According to Rudy Salles, vice president of the assembly, the decision to abandon Microsoft’s Windows software was both an economic and political gesture.

The French Parliament should save about 500,000 euros over the next five years, thanks to the low price of Ubuntu –- free –- and have lower management costs. Linux tends to have fewer security issues than Windows, for example.

As Ubuntu continues to gain worldwide acceptance and use by people with money for support, like governments, you will see Ubuntu to continue to improve.